Ten PC Tips

1. Reboot or turn PC off and back on again. I know that is slightly defeatist to mention however I have been supporting computers for over 20 years and still run into many questions that simply need only to have the PC turned off and back on again. Many people will call and wait on help desk phones to simple be told just this. If your mouse and keyboard are not doing anything, the mouse pointer is frozen, on PC, non-Apple, you hit the key combo CTRL+ESC and the start menu does not come up, don't wait, life is short, reboot it!

2. You want to control where the page breaks are in Microsoft Word. Type the whole document allowing Word to break the pages where it automatically will. After you are done typing go back to the top of the document and scroll down to where you want the page, first to second page, break to happen, click and press key combo CTRL+ENTER, that is press and hold the CTRL key and tap and do not hold the ENTER key. Scroll down again, always starting from top to the bottom, and repeat.

3. Need to find a web site you visited two days ago, in Microsoft Internet Explorer there is an icon on the menu above for the History, looks like a clock with green arrow pointed counterclockwise, click it. The screen below will split in two, on left navigate to previous date to find the places you were browsing the internet. The view button above this windowpane allows you to pick by date so that you can go back two days and look for the web site.

4. After using a search engine you are on the page that had what you were looking for but it is a large page that you have to scroll down through. Press and hold CTRL+F to bring up the find box, type in the word you are looking for and click next to find it, if first one is not right.

5. Quickly fill in the http://www. and .com to fill in address bar of Internet explorer. Lets say you have an idea that avis is most likely avis.com and you want to get to there web site filling in the address bar. Just type in avis, then hit key combo CTRL+ENTER and the http://www. and .com will fill itself in.

6. Want the menus in Office programs to fully show, pick from Tools menu-Customize item, pick options tab and uncheck menus show recently used commands first.

7. When registering online for anything create yourself a, what I call, junk mail address, to give all those online merchants somewhere to send you the spam mail they will inevitably send to you. Go to aol.com, Yahoo, Hotmail etc... and setup a free online email. Remember however to not give them your private email when setting up, give them a completely fake name if possible. In case of SPAM, I have used the program MAILGUARD with some success, please google it to find it, Free!

8. In multiple printer places, to change the printer that your PC defaults to, click on the start menu, then choose settings then choose Printer and Faxes. The window that comes up shows icons of all the printers connected to your PC, if you use the right mouse button to click on one a menu appears where you can use left click to Set as Default Printer. This will place a black check box on the printer, now when you print this Default printer will be where it prints.

9. Use the right mouse click more. Many shortcut commands are available when you click on something with the right mouse of your mouse.

10. Not so important but I wish everyone new this, in my area, and possibly all, COMCAST gives away the license to use McAfee virus protection. If you go to COMCAST's .net site, Associated Content. URL:(http://www.comcast.net). Then, register to use their customer only web portal, there is a link inside of this page that sends you to a specific McAfee web site created for COMCAST customers only where you can download the virus protection software. I was paying for this and just cancelled my subscription, uninstalled the McAfee software, using add and remove programs control panel, which I paid over $30.00 a year for. Then went to Comcast.net, logged in and navigated to the, I think it was security section, which led me to setup McAfee account and downloaded it, no extra charge, other than the COMCAST cable internet monthly charge.

Florida Fred